In its first WAC match of the season, the Idaho women’s tennis team left Arlington, Texas, with a 6-1 loss against No. 63 Denver. The team will wind down its season with conference play and a match against Texas-San Antonio Friday.
UTSA comes off of a 4-0 loss against Louisiana Tech and unlike the Vandals, the Roadrunners were unable to put any points on the board against Denver with a 7-0 loss on March 29.
UTSA is 5-9 on the season, dropping its last four matches but has had a few impressive efforts in the midst of a losing record. UTSA senior Kavya Menon saved the day earlier this month in an intense match-win against Sam Houston State with a No. 6 singles win coming after a one-set deficit. Sam Houston State is a strong competitor, having lost only 4-3 against then-No. 37 ranked TCU in a late January match.
Many of the teams the Vandals will be facing have arguably much tougher schedules and their records are not a very accurate depiction of how tough they are as competitors.
Most recently UTA dropped a match to No. 75 San Jose State 4-2. The Mavericks played TCU on March 6, and lost by the same 4-2 margin. At the time, TCU had moved up in the rankings since January, improving to No. 19.
The Mavericks put a point on the board in a 4-1 loss against then-No. 62 Wichita State and lost 4-2 against Columbia who was No. 53 at the time. Before facing the Vandals, the Mavericks have a few more WAC matches on their schedule as well, but this week will be going up against No. 55 North Texas only to finish off the season against No. 23 Tulsa and No. 60 Memphis.
“It’s the core of the season, the pressure matches that we’ve been looking forward to and we’ve been basically playing the whole season for these matches,” Idaho coach Myriam Sopel said. “I tell the girls basically the season starts now, the most important matches are now because you win WAC, you go to nationals.”
In the next few matches, statistically speaking, the answer to the Vandals’ success lies with senior Constance Alexander as a significant contributor. Alexander has won in singles, doubles or both in every match win for the Vandals this season with the exception of the Youngstown State match, when the Vandals won 4-3.
Victoria Lozano, who has traditionally been the No. 1 doubles go-to-player for Sopel, played exceptionally well with Almudena Sanz and were the only victors in the Denver loss. Recently experiencing an otherwise rocky season, Lozano has bounced back with four consecutive doubles wins.
Sanz had a rough start to the season as well, before an impressive singles win against New Mexico despite the Vandal loss. In her last seven singles matches Sanz is 5-2 and in her first singles loss in a while against Denver she still helped Lozano to win in doubles.
“Its definitely been an improvement, the top of the lineup both of them in singles in doubles so it’s something that’s a good anchor for the rest of the team and a good example in terms of skills expertise in tennis and leadership,” Sopel said.
Next up, the Vandals will meet WAC opponent UTSA at 2 p.m. Friday, April 5 in San Antonio. The vandals are still looking to balance out their record and currently sit at 6-8 overall.
Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]